Food product.



: m erm ne WILLIAM B. GERE, or SYRACUSE, NEW YORK, Assmnon TO MERRELL-soULE'ooMrANY,

F SYRACUSE, NEW YORK, A CORPORATION 01 NEW YORK.

FOOD PRODUCT.

No Drawing. Y

To all whom it may concern:

Be it known that I, WrTrJA B. GERE, a citizen of the United States, andresident of Syracuse, in the county of Onondaga, in the State of New York, have invented new and useful Improvements in Food Products, of

which the following is a full, clear, and ex act description. 4

This invention relates to certain improvements in food products and more particularly to a food product comprising milk, modified by the addition of milk constituents, and adapted for infant and invalid feeding. v

The objects and advantages attainedjby this invention are:

1st. The product embodies the proper pro- Y portions of the constituents of'milk in powdered form, whereby the low moisture content renders the same'practically permanent of bacteria content, has been destroyed. 1

2nd. The product is always uniform to conform to any predetermined formula.

3rd. The product is. always ready for use,

due to its permanency, and is easily prepared for use by the-mere addition of the proper amount of water as compared with the difficulty of modifying cow.s milk in the home, as obtained in the ordinary course of trade, to approximate mothers milk.

4th. The product is susceptible of being transported and obtained in places and 1mder circumstances and conditions where other milk is not obtainable, unless possibly it be condensed sweetenedmilk.

5th. A product Which may be modified by the addition of milk sugar in place {of cane sugar used in condensed milk.

6th. A product which may be made to contain a larger percentage of soluble or .lact-albumin than is found is cows milk.

7th. Aproduct in which the proportion of soluble or lact-albumin to casein may more nearly approximate mothers milk than does cowsmilk. I

8th.. A product in which the precipitation. oficaseimdueto acids in the stomach,

is very much finer than in ordinary cows milk and approximates mothers milk.

9th. A product in which, preferably,'the

Specification of Letters Patent.

Pat entedF eb. 13, 1917. Application filed February 1,1915. Seria1'No.i5,501.

lact-albumin has not been coagulatedand the milk enzyms not destroyed.

Other objects and advantages will be apparent.

' The problem is to so modify the constitu-' ents of milk by the addition of constituents naturally present in milk, that the com-- position will be adapted to the nutritive capabilities'of infants and invalids, and at the same time the. product must be of such a character that i t is relatively permanent in its nature and ready for use anywhere at any time.

The following table shows the comparative composition of cows milk, mothers milk, and an instance ofthe modified milk adapted to be produced by the method disclosed herein Water. Fat. Sugar. Casein. Albumin. Ash.

(reconstituted) 89 1 s. .40 .75 as .1. .5 .2

Mothers milk.

ence in their composition. In normal cases I the fat may be, readily increased by thead dition of a small amount of fresh cream.

.One' of the main difiiculties in feeding cows milk to infants lies-in the fact that the milk sugar. content is too low by about 15%. An

attempt is made, in home modification, to.

overcome this deficiency by the addition of commercial sugar of milk. Some of the desirable qualities of the original lactose are, however, destroyed by the process of refining and as satisfactory results cannot. be obtained by the use of added sugar of milk as can be obtained from using the right proportion of lastose as supplied in the original milk. a

By far the most important change necessary in the composition of cows milk before it is adapted to very young infants is a carefully adjusted split proteid modification.

In home modification there has been no way to restore the most important and easily digested of the two proteids in milk, namely: milk albumin. The next best thing is therefore attempted the addition of a grain extract, such as barley water, to prevent the precipitation of the excess casein in hard lumps in the stomach. By means of the process through which this modified milk must pass, the casein therein is not only less in amount than in plain cows milk, but also precipitates in acid solutions more similarly to human milk than to cows milk; that is, very much finer. By comparing the approximate analyses given, it will be seen that in the modified milk, the per cent. of casein to albumin compares very favorably. Lime water may be added to increase the ash content. 7

In order to make such a modified milk it is necessary to add lactose (milk sugar) and lact-albumin and to reduce the amount of casein. This may be'accomplished by blending cream, milk (skimmed or whole), with whey. Whey is obtained by removing casein from skimmed milk, or fat and casein from whole milk, by means of rennet or other means, leaving as whey the lact-albumin (soluble) and lactose (milk sugar) dissolved in water. The modified milk thus obtained', '-by manipulation of the proportions of cream, milk and whey used, a modified milk of practically any desired composition can be obtained,is then ready to be dried. This may be done by any of the means now known for drying organic substances such as 4 milk, but I prefer to employ a process such as that described in Letters Patent granted to R. Stauf, No. 666,711, in combination with the process described in Letters Patent No. 860,929, granted to Lewis G. Merrell, Irving S. Merrell and myself. That is,'condense the modified milk in vacuo and spray it at high pressure as described in Letters Patent No. 1,020,632, granted to Bevenot and De Neveu, into moisture absorbing air.

I do not confine myself to this method of making the modified milk powder. It can be accomplished by mechanically mixing cream powder, milk powder, and whey powder dried as above "descnbed. The product may thus be made to contain the correct proportion of ingredients, but will naturally be not as homogeneous as that which is desiccated after modifying.

The moisture content of the powdered product should not exceed three per cent. in an case, and in powders embodying consi erable percentages of butter. fats, as is often desirable in a modified milk for infant and invalidfeeding, the moisture content may be considerably lower, preferably not in excess of one and one-half per cent.

In combination with the low moisture-content referred to, the powdered product should also contain but a relatively small numberof bacteria, preferably not to exceed fifteen hundred (1500) per gram.

Although Illave described one particular method as preferable in carrying out each of the steps of the method herein described, such as the use of whey as a modifying agent and the desiccation of the solution formed by the modification by bringing the same in finely divided form into moisture absorbing air, whereby a soluble product is Produced, and have set forth one particular percentage of constituents in the modified product as being in certain cases preferable, I do not desire to limit myself to any particular sequence of steps or particular embodiments or methods comprising the separate steps or to any particular percentages of milk constituents, as many cha es may be made in the details of the process and the proportions of constituents in the product without departing from the spirit of this invention as set forth in the appended claims.

What I claim is:

1. A soluble powderedmilk of approximately the following composition: 18 per cent. buttenfat; 57.8 per cent. milk sugar; 8.6 per cent. casein; 7.5 per cent. lact-albumin; 7.3 percent. ash; 1.2 per cent moisture.

2. A soluble powdered milk containing active enzyms and of approxlmately the following composition: 18 per cent-butter fat;

57.8 per cent. milk sugar; 8.6 per cent. casein; 7.5 per cent. lact-albumin; 7.3 per cent. ash; 1.2 per cent.mo1sture. I

3. A soluble powdered milk which-reacts to theLefi'man test for enzyms and of approximately the following composition: 18

per cent. butter fat; 57.8 per cent. milk sugar; 8.6'per cent. casein; 7.5 per cent.

lact-albumin; 7.3 per cent. ash; 1.2 per cent. a

sugar; 8.6 er cent. casein; 7 .5 per cent. lactalbumin; .3 per cent. ash; 1.2 per cent. moisture.

6. A soluble powdered milk composed of spherical particles comprising homogenetributed coWs milk and additional milk ously distributed coWs milk and additional sugar and lact-albumin. 10 milk sugar and l'act-albumin, and character- In Witness whereof I have hereunto set ized by the practical absence of bacteria and my hand this 30th day of January, 1915. 5 the presence of active enzyms. WILLIAM B. GERE.

'7. A. soluble 'food product in powdered Witnesses: I form consisting of substantially dry spheri- E. A. THOMPSON,

cal particles comprising homogeneously dis- VIOLA HOWLAND. 

